[QGIS-Developer] Some thought on LTR

[Even Rouault]

> And at this stage in the life of the LTR I just
> don't see the risks of regressions outweighing anything but
> crash/corruption fixes.

"Stage" is the keyword here. Number of software vendors have generally several 
stages during the lifetime of the product they support, generally a first one 
which is the polishing of the release where they can even add new features, 
another one where they only backport (critical) bug fixes, and a final one 
where they only backport security related bug fixes.

So, maybe we could have a 2 phase process:
- First 6 months: backport of bug fixes with the same criteria as we do 
currently
- Last 6 months: only critical bug fixes (crashes, data loss)

(or 9 months / 3 months, whatever...)

But if we're really in that mode, that should not only apply to QGIS but to 
its dependent libraries as well. Basically this would mean that for OSGeo4W, 
you should have 2 distinct sets for the dependencies: one frozen (or with very 
controlled changes) for the LTR, and a living one for the new versions.

Even

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